


we'll meet again, along the way

by laallomri



Series: klance oneshot collections [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Gen, Humor, M/M, Rating for Language, broganes, everything takes place in the same world as canon but the fix-it version, first chapter has a table of contents with details about each oneshot, oneshots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2021-01-02 01:01:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21152987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laallomri/pseuds/laallomri
Summary: For a moment Keith thinks this might actually be straightforward, that they can catch up to not-Shiro and Lotor without difficulty, but then—“Disappointed but not surprised,” Lance mutters as the first druid appears.Keith gives him a look. More druids appear, one by one in a circle, closing in like birds of prey. Keith summons his bayard and takes his Galra knife out from his pocket; both melt into their sword forms at the same time. “Is now really the time for memes?”“There’s always time for memes, mullet!” Lance says. He turns to face the druids behind them, taking a few steps backward so his back hits Keith’s. “Would it really kill these people to just let us win easy for once?”“Probably,” Keith says. “You ready?”collection of small fics I wrote last year forthese 2018 keithtober prompts





	1. table of contents

**Author's Note:**

> I posted these to tumblr and twitter ages ago and thought I'd post them here to save them. it's possible some of these might become longer fics, but no guarantees
> 
> also: sorry to self-deprecate and this isn't a fish for compliments but since most of these were written in 1 or 2 days, they aren't up to my normal standards of writing. so if they seem Off, that's why. if there are any typos big enough to be confusing, let me know and I'll fix it
> 
> lance's eyes: brown  
my brain: big  
my fellow poc: represented properly for their brown eyes
> 
> collection title is a lyric from the song Phir Milenge Chalte Chalte from the movie Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi

chapter one - table of contents

chapter two - day 1: red paladin. keith leaves the blade of marmora and returns to the red lion

chapter three - day 2: black paladin. keith and lance talk on the control deck at night a few days after he becomes black paladin

chapter four - day 3: childhood memories. keith and adam and shiro eat pancakes in their pajamas

chapter five - day 4: in the future. lance is away doing diplomat stuff with allura and hunk. keith stays home to look after their 6 year old daughter

chapter six - day 6: found family. keith and lance give shiro a pep talk so he can propose to adam. afterward, the whole team celebrates

chapter seven - day 7: dual wielding. an AU of the end of s6, ft. klance going after kuron together and lance getting to use his “boy from cuba” line in a much different scenario

chapter eight - day 9: racing with shiro. adam goes to get groceries. shiro and keith and lance are supposed to clean in the meantime, but things go a little awry


	2. day 1: red paladin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> keith leaves the blade of marmora and returns to the red lion. tw for fake-out death for a minor oc

Keith leaves the Blade of Marmora four months two weeks and six days after he arrives.   
  
This is how it happens:  
  
He goes on a mission with another blade member named Rath. She’s newer, just joined a couple weeks ago, but Keith already knows her better than most of the blade members, since she’s one of the chattiest people he’s ever met. She talks about her friends, her hobbies, the new shampoo she’s been trying out. She talks and talks and talks, and Keith always listens, and every night he writes down the funniest stories to tell all his own friends if—_when_—he sees them again.  
  
Their mission is supposed to be straightforward, a basic in-and-out, collect-the-intel-and-plant-the-patches kind of job. Rath is in high spirits as they fly to the base, trash-talking the Galra sentries’ uniforms as they approach.  
  
“Those outfits are so stupid,” she says, snickering at the images on the screen. “What an ugly color scheme. Even a baby could come up with a better design.” She lights up, as if a thought has just occurred to her. “Hey! Speaking of babies, do you wanna see my nephew?”  
  
Keith opens his mouth to respond, but she interrupts him.  
  
“Of course you do, he’s a _baby_ and he’s _adorable_,” she says. She pushes some buttons on the control panel and pulls up what Keith assumes is the galactic equivalent of Google Drive. She clicks on a folder. “Here he is! Isn’t he a cutie?”  
  
Keith blinks at the screen. The baby is probably only half Galra, judging from the bright blue eyes and the rainbow-striped tail. His purple ears are large and floppy, his skin is dark blue, and he’s biting down on the foot of a stuffed animal twice the size that he is.  
  
“Kind of,” Keith says.  
  
Rath beams at the screen. “He’s my favorite person in the entire universe,” she says fondly. “I love him even more than I love the girl in those chocolate commercials.”  
  
Keith doesn’t know who that is, but he gets the sense that this is a considerable comparison, so he says, “That’s cool.”  
  
“His name is Yznak,” Rath goes on. “He’s very happy! He laughs at everything. Once I poked his belly and he laughed so hard he almost rolled off the couch.”  
  
Keith smiles at the image. Now that he’s a little more used to his appearance, the baby’s actually pretty cute.   
  
“When did you last see him?”  
  
Rath’s face falls.  
  
“Six phoebs ago,” she says. “My brother was caught passing information along to Kolivan and was tortured as punishment. His husband helped him escape, but the two of them and Yznak had to go into hiding.” She pushes a button and the picture of Yznak vanishes, replaced by the map of their route. “That’s why I joined the blade, actually. It’s not much, but I want to do something so they can come back and I can see them more often. I don’t want Yznak to grow up under Galra rule.”  
  
Keith stares hard at the map. He hasn’t felt angry in a long time, not properly angry, but he can feel it building now, feel the rush of it through his veins, the hot and cold of it as it threatens to overtake him. The Galra Empire hurting unnamed, faceless people is much easier to compartmentalize; he can set it aside, can think of this war as vague good versus vague evil.  
  
This, however, is much harder to ignore. This is a dark blue baby with bright blue eyes and a rainbow tail and purple ears, a baby who hasn’t seen his aunt in six phoebs, because the Galra Empire cares more about power and planets and quintessence than about a baby who giggles so much he almost falls off a couch.  
  
Promises are stupid at the blade, stupid and dangerous and unfulfilled, but right now Keith doesn’t feel like a blade member. Right now he feels like a paladin, so he says, firmly, “You’ll see him again soon.”  
  
Rath smiles, a bit sad. “I know I will,” she says, then, more cheerfully, “And in the meantime I can vent my feelings by kicking imperial ass and stealing intel right out from under their stupid noses!”   
  
She holds out her fist. Keith bumps it, laughing a little at her enthusiasm, and thinks that maybe, maybe maybe maybe, this promise won’t be as stupid and dangerous and unfulfilled as the other ones.

.^.  
  
(so many sentries, why the fuck are there so many sentries, where are they even coming from, how did they even know they were coming—)  
  
(his arms are sore, but at last he’s chopped up a clear path to the pod waiting outside, and he runs—)   
  
(he runs, and he tumbles into the pod, and he looks back, and Rath is still so far away, and there’s so many _fucking_ sentries, and Keith feels like he might explode with anger, and he half wishes he would, because then the explosion would blast all these stupid sentries back and Rath could make it—)  
  
(he starts to go back out of the pod, to go help her, but Kolivan is shouting in his earpiece, and the doors—)  
  
(—slam shut—)  
  
(—and Keith bangs on the doors, punches and kicks and yells until his voice is hoarse, but the doors won’t fucking open, and the pod just—)  
  
(—takes off—)  
  
(—the pod takes off, and Keith slams his fist once more against the door, and he slides down to the floor, and he thinks he might be crying)

.^.  
  
(promises are stupid at the blade, stupid and dangerous and unfulfilled)

.^.

The briefing is tense. Keith’s memory of the trip back is fuzzy, but he has some vague recollection of getting out of the pod and throwing the data chip at Kolivan and saying _here’s your fucking intel_, which is probably why the other blade members are giving him such a wide berth.   
  
He doesn’t really care. He stands at the back of the room, arms crossed as he stares blankly at the screen displaying the information from the data chip.   
  
The door opens. A blade member comes in and speaks to Kolivan in a low voice. Kolivan nods and turns to the room.  
  
“Rath has contacted us,” he says.  
  
Keith jolts out of his daze. “What?” he says, too loud.  
  
Kolivan gives him a stern look. “She managed to evade capture,” he says. “She is heavily injured and has requested that a pod come to collect her from the base.”  
  
The relief that floods through Keith is staggering. “I’ll go,” he says. “I’ll go—or if someone else is going, I’ll go with them—”  
  
“No one is going anywhere,” Kolivan interrupts. “It is imperative we analyze this data first.”  
  
Keith blinks. “But she needs help!”  
  
“The base will be expecting us to return,” Kolivan replies. “Bursting in without proper analysis of their security measures is foolish.”  
  
That is—probably correct. But it doesn’t sit well with Keith that he’s so—calm—about this—as if the thing that got left behind was a fucking coat and not a _person_—   
  
“Okay,” Keith says, as evenly as he can manage, “but aren’t you—aren’t you worried—”  
  
“Blade members do not worry,” Kolivan says, his expression impassive. “Emotions have nothing to do with this.”  
  
Keith clenches his fists. Kolivan keeps talking, goes back to going over the intel, and Keith knows he should pay attention, but he doesn’t, because he hates this, he fucking _hates_ it, they don’t care if they leave someone behind they don’t care if they’re alive they don’t care about anything, they’re cold and severe and maybe that works for them but it doesn’t work for Keith, because Keith isn’t cold, Keith isn’t severe, he lived that way by force for years but even then something in him burned for affection and friendship and love, and now that he’s known it he can’t survive without it.  
  
He doesn’t listen, because he hates this, and he knows he can’t live like this anymore, and his mind is yelling _leave leave leave leave leave_, over and over and over, and he wants to be home, wants to be loved, wants to be with people who would look at Rath and her weirdly cute baby nephew and _feel_ something, feel like this is worth worrying, worth urgency, worth crying over.  
  
He takes a deep breath, tries to think past the _leave leave leave_ echoing in his mind, tries to listen so he can help rescue her when the pod finally does fucking leave, tries not to think about how different this would be if he had his friends with him, how they wouldn’t need to wait because they could just bust in and blast the base with their lions and get Rath out. He takes a deep breath, and tries to listen, but then—  
  
—a roar—  
  
—long and loud and—  
  
—familiar—  
  
_Temperamental_, Red rumbles, in the back of Keith’s mind, and he has no idea where the fuck Red is, but the sound of his voice sends warmth bursting through Keith, like entering a warm room after hours in the freezing cold. _Need anger management_.  
  
_I do not need anger management_, Keith thinks at him, scowling, as if there aren’t a hundred more pressing matters that need to be addressed right now.  
  
_Do too_, Red rumbles, then, _Talk later. Right now destroy wall_.  
  
“Destroy _what_?” Keith says aloud, appalled, and Kolivan gives him another stern look, but in the next moment it doesn’t matter, because Red bursts through the right wall of the room, scattering the blade members about the room.  
  
_Hello, Akira_, Red says, and for a wild moment Keith wants to laugh, because his head is sticking through the space like a dog poking his head through a pet door. _Time to leave_.  
  
(_leave leave leave leave leave_)  
  
Keith’s heart leaps. He nods at Red, whose eyes glow in response.  
  
Some of the blade members have scrambled to their feet. A few of them have their weapons out, to Keith’s amusement; as if a knife would be any help against someone as mighty as Red.  
  
Kolivan looks furious. “What is the meaning of this?”  
  
“I gotta go,” Keith says, with a falsely apologetic shrug. _Go to the side door_, he thinks at Red. _I’ll get my stuff from my room and meet you there_.  
  
Red removes his head from the room. Keith pushes past a few bewildered blade members and runs down the hall to his room. He stuffs his things into his backpack, then hurries to the side door. Red is floating outside; he opens his mouth and Keith jumps in, landing in the pilot’s seat with an _oof_. He looks round, surprised to find that the lion is empty.  
  
“Where’s Lance?” he asks aloud.  
  
Red huffs. _Rude_, he says. _No hello for me. Only care about Leandro. Leandro Leandro Leandro. All day all times Leandro_.  
  
_Not_ all _the time_, Keith says, embarrassed. _I just—he’s your paladin, right_?  
  
_Not anymore_, Red says. _Different lion now. Long story. Will explain later. But need to rescue your brother_.  
  
Keith’s stomach drops. _Shiro_?  
  
_Is okay_, Red assures him. _Don’t worry. First rescue blade friend_.  
  
Keith nods. He sets his backpack on the floor and settles down properly in the pilot’s seat. _We also gotta stop by and get Krolia, he says. She’s my mother. She went to meet with some rebel fighters by Farshta-12_.  
  
_Okay_, Red says. _Friend: rescued. Mother: acquired. Akira will be happy and together with family_.  
  
Keith chuckles. _Is that a meme_? he asks. _Did Lance teach you that_?  
  
_Yes_, Red says. _Teaches lots of things. Very cool. Cooler than you_.  
  
“Can’t argue with that,” Keith mutters. He puts his hands on the controls and grins; it feels like there’s lightning running through him, like the feel of being back in Red, of being Red’s paladin again, is filling him up and expelling all the horribleness of the past few months. “Thanks for coming to get me.”  
  
_Of course_, Red rumbles. _Wanted to come back, yes? Wanted to leave_.  
  
_You could hear me thinking that all the way from here_?  
  
_You are my paladin_, Red says. _You need me, I come. From across galaxy, from across universe_.  
  
Keith’s heart swells. He grips the controls tighter, smiling again.  
  
“I’m glad I have you,” he says, then slams the controls forward. “Let’s go get Rath!”


	3. day 2: black paladin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> keith and lance talk on the control deck at night a few days after he becomes black paladin

It’s four days after the Thayserix incident, four days after Keith almost got everyone killed. The memory of it eats at him, pricks at the back of his mind and the center of his chest and the pit of his stomach, waits until he’s alone, until it can spread over the rest of him, like a thundercloud over a blue sky, and whisper _failure failure failure_.  
  
It makes any alone time almost unbearable, but nighttime is the worst, when everything is dark and quiet and the whispers become shouts. Tonight is so bad he can’t sleep at all; after an hour of tossing and turning, he finally concedes defeat and gets out of bed. It gets cold in the castle ship’s hallways sometimes, so he pulls on a sweater that he got at a planet that Voltron visited last month. He doesn’t feel like putting on his boots, so he just puts on his thickest pair of socks he can find in his closet.  
  
He wanders around the castle ship for a while, though in the end his feet take him where they always do when he can’t sleep: the control room. It’s dark, the only illumination coming from the stars and the colorful lights along the paladin chairs and Allura’s pedestal.  
  
Keith goes to the front of the room, where the window curves. He leans in the curve, arms crossed and head resting against the window, and looks out at the stars. He wonders if Shiro is doing the same, wherever he is; wonders if he can send him a message, if he tries hard enough.  
  
He squeezes his eyes shut. _Hello_, he says. _This is your brother speaking. I hope you are okay. I’m going to keep looking for you_.  
  
(it’s dumb, the kind of thing he would have done when he was little and used to climb up to the roof with his dad and point out made-up constellations because he couldn’t remember the names of the real ones. it’s dumb, but it makes him feel a little better, makes him feel a little less like he can’t breathe, so he lets himself do it anyway)  
  
_I hope you’re someplace nice_, he thinks next. _Maybe a beach somewhere. An alien resort. With tacky floral-print shirts and overpriced sodas_.  
  
He opens his eyes and shifts to sit with his knees drawn up to his chest, his arms wrapped around his legs. He likes the idea of Shiro on vacation somewhere, of him smiling and laughing and being nothing but happy. Shiro tries hard to act normal, but Keith can feel the heaviness around him sometimes. He hates it, hates that he can’t do anything about it. Big brothers usually take care of you; what do you do when the person who takes care of you needs to be taken care of?  
  
Keith squeezes his eyes shut again.  
  
_Pidge and Hunk said they’re working on a way to communicate with earth, he says. If we don’t find you by then, I’ll say hello to your mom and to Adam for you. And I’ll record what they say back so you can hear it, too_.  
  
He starts to say more, but right then he hears the door whoosh open. He stiffens, then opens his eyes and turns. Lance is standing in the doorway, wearing his pajamas and robe and looking as surprised as Keith feels.  
  
“Hi,” he says. He shoves his hands in his pockets. “Is it okay if I come in?”  
  
“Sure,” Keith says.  
  
Lance hovers by the door for a moment longer, then comes over to where Keith is sitting and plops down beside him, cross-legged.  
  
“I couldn’t sleep,” he says. “I accidentally fell asleep after training earlier and didn’t wake up until dinner, so now I’m wide awake.”  
  
A pause. Keith realizes, belatedly, that he’s probably supposed to respond with his own reason for still being awake. But the silence has gone on too long, and he doesn’t really feel like explaining anything right now, so he just tightens his arms around his legs and tucks his chin against his knees.  
  
A few minutes pass.  
  
“Hey,” Lance says suddenly. He points to a cluster of stars directly ahead. “That looks like a face.”  
  
Keith squints at the stars. It just looks like every other collection of stars. “What?”  
  
Lance traces his finger in the air. “Look, you can see the hair, and the eyes, and kind of a round nose…”  
  
“Oh.” Keith lifts his head. The stars do look like a face, though a weirdly-shaped one, like in those wacky paintings Shiro’s mother has hanging on the walls of her apartment. “Yeah, I see it. Sort of.”  
  
“And those over there”—Lance points left—“look like a shoe. Maybe the face stars lost it.”  
  
Keith frowns. “How do you lose your shoe?” he asks.  
  
“One of my baby cousins does it all the time,” Lance says. He shifts, stretching his legs out in front of him and leaning back on his palms. “Pretty much every time I take her to the park. She wanders around and then one of her shoes falls off and she just. Keeps walking. As if nothing ever happened. She literally never notices.”  
  
Keith laughs, though it’s quiet, more of a huff than an actual sound. “That’s kinda cute.”  
  
“Excuse you,” Lance says, indignant. “That’s not _kinda_ cute. That’s fucking adorable. She’s the cutest toddler in the entire universe.” He pauses. “Well, tied with my other baby cousins. And my niece and nephew. And Hunk’s nieces.”  
  
“Heavy competition,” Keith says.  
  
“Competition is good,” Lance says. “It keeps you on your toes.”  
  
He taps his toes together as he says it. He’s wearing the lion slippers, so it looks like the lions are bumping foreheads.  
  
“Stop making your lions fight,” Keith says.  
  
Lance blinks at him, then at his slippers. It’s a stupid joke, and Keith expects him to ignore it, or to make fun of him, but he just grins, wide and bright. The sight of makes Keith’s heart skip a beat.  
  
“Hey, that was a joke!” Lance says, delighted. “Hunk was right, Galra Keith _is_ funnier than regular Keith.”  
  
The comment is offhand, the comment doesn’t mean anything, but still, it sticks in Keith’s head—  
  
(_Galra Keith_, his mind whispers. _Galra Keith piloting an Altean lion, Galra Keith leading the team, Galra Keith fighting the Galra when he doesn’t even know what side of the war his Galra family is on_)  
  
Keith breathes, in and out. He tucks his chin against his knees again. For a while he thought he was okay with being part Galra, but now—now it feels weird again, like the first time he learned it. Every time he sits in Black, he thinks of the last time a Galra sat in them, thinks of how horribly Black was treated. Doesn’t it bother Black, that a Galra pilots them again? Doesn’t it hurt them to have to bond with a Galra again, to listen to a Galra’s commands?  
  
Keith knows he’s not like Zarkon, that he would never ever _ever_ be like Zarkon, that even if he found out that his Galra family supports the Empire, he would still side with Voltron. But just because he knows this doesn’t mean that the Black Lion knows; how can they trust him so readily when the Galra have only ever hurt them, and used them, and took away the paladin they accepted after ten thousand years of rejecting every effort to bond with them?  
  
He exhales slowly, trying to calm his twisting stomach. It makes him feel sick to think about this, but he can’t not think about this, either.  
  
“Are you okay?” Lance asks.   
  
Keith comes back to the present with a jolt. “What?”  
  
“You’re really quiet,” Lance explains. “Well, you’re quiet a lot, but I meant—” He breaks off, uncertain. “I didn’t offend you or anything, did I? I won’t make Galra Keith jokes if it bothers you.”  
  
Keith shakes his head. He shrinks into himself, a question on the tip of his tongue. It feels almost physically painful to ask, but he needs to ask _someone_, so he pushes past his discomfort and says, all in a rush, “Do you think the Black Lion hates that a Galra is piloting it again?”  
  
For a long moment Lance doesn’t say anything. Keith stares at the stars, too nervous to look at him.  
  
“I think,” Lance says finally, “that the Black Lion hates you referring to them as an ‘it.’”  
  
Keith huffs. “I—I don’t usually—it was a mistake, in my head I—”  
  
“It’s okay,” Lance interrupts. Keith is still too nervous to look at him, but he thinks he can hear a smile in his voice. “I know you didn’t mean to be rude.”  
  
Another pause. Lance shifts again. Keith can’t resist a peek, and sees out of the corner of his eye that Lance is sitting cross-legged once more.  
  
“Black chose you,” Lance says. “They wouldn’t have done that if they hated you. People don’t hang out with people they hate.”  
  
(_you hang out with me_, Keith’s mind whispers, _and you hate me_)  
  
(_does he, though_? says another part, the part that’s dumb, and stupid, and ridiculous, the part that makes him have to catch his breath whenever he looks at Lance. _he must like you at least a little, right_?)  
  
(_wrong_¸ says the first part, _wrong, wrong, he only puts up with you because of the team, because he has to_—)  
  
(but Lance sits by him at every meal, and nudges him whenever Coran says something ridiculous, and shrugs at him whenever Pidge goes on one of her scientific rants)  
  
(but Lance stands by him at coalition meetings, and grins at him whenever Allura puts a pretentious diplomat in their place, and laughs with him when Hunk accidentally makes a robot that chases them around the castle ship)  
  
(but Lance tells him it’s okay to miss Shiro, it’s okay to keep moving, that he can lead Voltron without leaving anyone behind, that he can lead Voltron without feeling like the responsibility will drown him, because Lance will always pull him out of the water before he sinks)  
  
(_how could he hate you_? whispers the dumb, stupid, ridiculous part of his mind. _how could that be right_?)  
  
For once he wants to listen to that dumb, stupid, ridiculous part, but he wants to be sure, so he lifts his head, and looks at Lance, and says, quick so he won’t chicken out, “Are we friends?”  
  
“Of course,” Lance says, and it’s so immediate, and certain, and Keith’s heart feels it might explode out of his chest. “Did you”—he laughs, the short, uncomfortable laugh of someone who is suddenly very nervous—“did you think we weren’t?”  
  
“I wasn’t sure,” Keith says honestly. “You’re _my_ friend but I didn’t know if I’m _your_ friend.”  
  
“Oh,” Lance says. Something strange passes over his expression, too fast for Keith to read. “Well, you are. I’m your friend and you’re my friend.”  
  
“We’re friends,” Keith says.  
  
“Yes,” Lance confirms. “We’re friends. Buddies. Pals.” He winks and clicks his tongue, shooting a finger gun at Keith. “Compatriots. Chums. Accomplices.”  
  
Keith laughs, properly this time. “Accomplices?” he repeats. “Are we committing a crime?”  
  
“If you want,” Lance says. “That’s what friends are for! Late night talks, and goofing off, and doing what the other person wants.” He puts a hand on Keith’s shoulder and looks directly at him, his expression very serious. “If you want to do a crime, I will do it, too. Ride or die, my friend.”  
  
Keith wants to answer, wants to say that based on the Shiro model of friendship, friends are supposed to prevent you from doing crimes, not help you do them—but it’s kind of hard to think, because Lance’s hand is warm and heavy on his shoulder, and he’s looking right at Keith, and his eyes are always pretty but here, in this dark room with the stars in front them, they’re practically glowing, sparkling bright and brown.  
  
So Keith just swallows, and clears his throat, and says, “I think we should avoid crime.”  
  
“Suit yourself,” Lance says, shrugging. He rubs Keith’s shoulder and Keith’s stomach flips. “This sweater is really soft.”  
  
“You can borrow it sometime if you want,” Keith says, as if the sight of Lance in his sweater wouldn’t make him combust on the spot.   
  
“Thanks, man, maybe I will,” Lance says. His hand drops from Keith’s shoulder. He yawns. “I’m gonna turn in now. I think after talking to you I can actually fall asleep.”  
  
Keith’s mouth twitches. “Are you saying that I’m boring?”  
  
Lance blinks at him, then grins.  
  
“Another joke!” he says, pumping his fist triumphantly. “Galra Keith is a comedian.” He gets to his feet. “You gonna come, too? Do you think you can sleep now?”  
  
Keith thinks of his room, dark and quiet; thinks of the whispers in the back of his head, waiting for him to be alone so they can shout _failure_ at him again. He thinks of Lance, smiling at his bad jokes; of Lance, saying _I’m your friend and you’re my friend_; of Lance, who finds him when he’s drowning, and pulls him out of the water before he sinks.  
  
He looks up at Lance and smiles.  
  
“Yes,” he says, and gets to his feet. “I think I’ll be okay.”


	4. day 3: childhood memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> keith and adam and shiro eat pancakes in their pajamas

It’s Friday evening, Keith is in his pajamas, and he is going to make waffles.  
  
“You are not going to make waffles,” Adam says.  
  
It’s Friday evening, Keith is in his pajamas, and he is not going to make waffles.  
  
“You are going to make pancakes,” Adam continues, “because the waffle maker is still traumatized from the last time you and Takashi tried to use it.”  
  
Keith does not think waffle makers can be traumatized. But this is Adam’s apartment, and Adam’s kitchen, so he just nods and takes the giant box of pancake mix out from the cupboard.  
  
“Takashi likes them with chocolate chips,” Adam says, “because he’s a heathen with no taste.”  
  
Keith rummages through the pantry for the packet. “I like them with chocolate chips, too,” he informs him.  
  
Adam takes out the pan and the mixing bowl. “You are not a heathen with no taste,” he says kindly. “You’re just a misguided child who is under the charge of a heathen with no taste.”  
  
Keith just nods again. Adam finishes taking out their supplies and together they make the batter. Keith isn’t sure if Adam will let him cook the pancakes after The Great Omelette Incident (ranked only slightly lower than The Great Waffle Maker Incident in terms of Adam’s exasperation and the length of Shiro’s and Keith’s banishment from the kitchen), but it seems that Adam has forgiven him, since he hands Keith the spatula and leans against the counter to watch.  
  
(that’s the best thing about Adam. there are a lot of best things about Adam, like his cooking, and his hugs, and the way he explains math problems so Keith can understand them better, and the way he can make Shiro laugh no matter how bad his day has been. but Keith’s favorite thing is that he always always _always_ forgives him, even for the time that Keith dropped a new bag of flour and it burst and covered the kitchen in white powder)  
  
(in a world of simulator rankings and exam percentages and hyper-specific scholarship qualifications, a person who always forgives Keith is an oddity)  
  
An oddity, but a wonderful oddity, so he smiles as he carefully flips the pancake.  
  
Adam takes off his glasses. He squints at the lens, then wipes them on his shirt. He puts them on, sighs, then takes them back off and wipes them on his shirt again. “You have a lot of homework this weekend?” he asks.  
  
“Just physics.”  
  
“Yuck,” Adam says, making a face. He puts his glasses back on. He makes another face, which Keith knows is directed at his still-smeared lens, but he gives up and leaves them be. “You got it under control?”  
  
“I think so,” Keith says. He hasn’t actually looked at the assignment yet. “I can just ask Shiro for help, though, so I’m not worried about it.” He lifts the pancake with the spatula and puts it onto the plate, then pours another circle of batter into the pan. “I got an A on my chemistry quiz.”  
  
“Nice!” Adam holds out his hand. Keith high-fives it. “What else is going on?”  
  
Keith tells him about class that day, about noisy students and weird math problems and Iverson’s phone going off in the middle of lecture (“his ringtone is Call Me Maybe,” Keith says, snickering; “Oh yeah,” Adam says, also snickering, “it went off during a meeting last week and I almost lost it”). By the time he’s done, he’s cooked almost all of the pancakes and only slightly burnt two.  
  
“You’re a regular Gordon Ramsey,” Adam says, when Keith points this out.  
  
Keith can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or not, so he says, “It’s better than Shiro’s cooking.”  
  
“True,” Adam says, “though literally anything is better than Takashi’s cooking, so I’m not sure if that’s the standard you should be measuring yourself against.”  
  
Keith turns off the stove and flips the last pancake onto the plate. There’s a rattle at the door, the sound of a key fumbling into the lock.  
  
“Oh look,” Adam says, with a peculiar mix of dry and fond. “His royal highness has arrived.”  
  
The door opens. Shiro’s entrance is as loud as always: the rustle of his jacket being removed, knock of his boots as he takes them off, the cheerful “I’M HOME!”  
  
(it’s not his home, not really; he and Adam don’t live together. but he has his own key, and he always says _I’m home_, and he always leaves half his crap here as if it is his home, and Keith wonders if home isn’t a place, but the people in it)  
  
Shiro comes into the kitchen, pushing the sleeves of his uniform up to his elbows. He kisses Adam’s cheek and ruffles Keith’s hair, then spots the plates on the counter.  
  
“Pancakes!” he says. The packet of chocolate chips is still on the counter, too; he grabs a handful and knocks them all back at once, then asks through the mouthful of chocolate, “Is that what we’re having for dinner?”   
  
“Yes,” Keith says proudly. “I made them myself.”  
  
“That’s great!” Shiro says. He looks at Adam, then gently removes his glasses and wipes the still-smeared lens on his Garrison uniform. “I can’t believe you agreed to eat chocolate chip pancakes.”  
  
“I make many sacrifices for the empowerment of youth,” Adam says solemnly.  
  
Shiro snorts and slides Adam’s glasses back on. Adam adjusts them, blinking a couple times through the clear lens, then smiles and flicks at the floof at the front of Shiro’s hair.  
  
“Go get changed,” he says. “We’re gonna eat in our pajamas and have a movie marathon.”  
  
“Hell yeah,” Shiro says.  
  
He heads to the bedroom to change. Meanwhile, Keith and Adam put the plates and three glasses of milk on the crappy coffee table in the living room. Keith checks to make sure the two slightly burnt pancakes are on his own plate—he doesn’t want to give Shiro burnt food—then goes to wash his hands. When he comes back, Shiro and Adam are already sitting on the couch. Keith squeezes between Shiro and the arm of the couch as Adam puts on the first movie, and they get to eating.  
  
It’s kind of a mess; all three of them talk during movies, which means they have to constantly pause and resume and go back because they went off on such a tangent that they forgot what happened in the scene they just saw. They each have their own category of movie commenting: Shiro reacts loudly to every plot twist and dramatic reveal, Keith points out plot holes, and Adam makes fun of all the characters and special effects.  
  
Keith finishes his food first; he gets through all of his pancakes before realizing the two slightly burnt ones are mysteriously missing. He glances over and sees that they’re both on Adam’s plate now.  
  
It feels—strange. Strange but nice, to have someone take the burnt food so you don’t have to eat it. He adds it to his ever-growing list of best things about Adam: the hoodies he lets Keith borrow whenever he comes over, the funny comments he makes during movies, the way he didn’t laugh at Keith when Keith told him that he’s scared of cockroaches.  
  
Toward the end of the first movie, they pause so Adam can go to the bathroom. As soon as he leaves the living room, Keith looks at Shiro, who’s taking a sip from his glass of milk.  
  
“You should marry him,” he says, without preamble.  
  
Shiro chokes. He puts the glass down, coughing.  
  
“What?” he splutters, when he’s recovered enough to talk.  
  
“You should marry him,” Keith repeats.  
  
“We’re kind of young for marriage,” Shiro says.  
  
“No you’re not,” Keith says. “You’re twenty-one. That’s old enough.”  
  
“Can I ask what your definition of old is?” Shiro asks, frowning. “Cause I assumed you were joking when you called me an oldtimer last week but I’m starting to think you were serious.”  
  
Keith ignores him. “You cleaned his glasses for him,” he says, “so you should get married.”  
  
“I didn’t realize that would have so much significance,” Shiro says. “Is that how teenagers indicate their commitment to each other nowadays? Cleaning each other’s glasses? Cause that’s not how we old people do it.”  
  
Keith frowns. He doesn’t know how to explain it, but it makes him happy to see them happy, makes him feel like everything is going to be okay no matter how terrible everything else is. Keith might fail a test and get yelled at by Iverson and deal with James’s bullshit during the school day, but at least when he comes here he knows everyone will be happy, knows that he has these two people to count on, who count on each other as well.  
  
Maybe it’s dumb, but he feels like cleaning someone’s glasses for them means something, means that you notice things about them and care about them and will do anything, even the tiniest thing, to make their life a little better.  
  
Shiro leans back against the couch. There’s a smear of chocolate on his t-shirt, which he rubs at as he speaks.  
  
“Not now,” he says, “but someday.” He smiles, very soft, the way he always does when he talks about Adam. “At least, I hope so.”  
  
Keith beams. “Can I help?” he asks. He likes the idea of helping pick out a ring, or the spot Shiro would propose in, or even putting up with Shiro’s disastrous lack of skill in the kitchen so they could make something. “I want to help.”  
  
“Help with what?” Adam asks, walking back into the living room.  
  
Shiro and Keith jump. They look at each other, panicked, then look at Adam.  
  
“Nothing,” Keith says, too quickly. “Just—just nothing.”  
  
“Bro stuff,” Shiro adds. He holds out his fist to Keith, who bumps it with his own fist. “Top secret. Classified information.”  
  
Adam squints at them suspiciously, but he lets it go, retaking his spot on the couch.  
  
“We’ll tell you,” Keith adds, because he feels like he might burst with excitement, “someday.”  
  
Shiro frowns and elbows him. Keith scowls and elbows him back. Adam ignores them and presses ‘play’ on the movie, going right back into roasting the character on screen. The villain bursts in a few seconds later, and Shiro gasps, and Adam says _how did that surprise you of course the villain’s gonna show up at this point_, and Shiro says _not all of us are nerds who pay attention to plot arcs_, and Adam says _not all of us are jocks who don’t_, and Shiro sticks his tongue out at him, and Adam laughs, and leans his head against Shiro’s shoulder, and Keith thinks this must be what it’s like in books, when the character finds the person they’re supposed to be with forever.  
  
He wonders if he’ll ever have this, if he’ll ever have someone who would put his head on Keith’s shoulder right after making fun of him, someone who Keith could roast and kiss in the same sentence, someone who will make him happy the way Adam makes Shiro happy. He isn’t sure if he ever will, but he’s happy that his brother has it, happy that he is happy.  
  
Keith smiles, and settles into the side of the couch, and spends the rest of the movie agreeing vehemently with Adam’s comments about the plot arc, just to annoy Shiro. He can’t let him be _too_ happy, after all; brothers are supposed to be annoying, and Keith will be damned if he doesn’t work to be the most annoying little brother that he can be.


	5. day 4: in the future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lance is away doing diplomat stuff with allura and hunk. keith stays home to look after their 6 year old daughter

Keith is surrounded.  
  
“Don’t get too comfortable,” he says, narrowing his eyes at the largest creature, who stands directly in front of him. “My teammate will be here soon to rescue me, and she’s the best paladin the universe has ever seen.”  
  
The creature—who is actually just Platt, holding a tiny wooden sword and wearing a weblum costume that Lance knitted a few months ago—scowls and twitches his tail. He squeaks, which Keith assumes is some equally dramatic dialogue.  
  
“Ha!” Keith crosses his arms and scowls back. “That’s what _you_ think.”  
  
Platt squeaks again. The other three space mice, also wearing knitted weblum costumes, close in their circle around Keith and stab at his ankles with their tiny wooden swords.  
  
“Nooo!” Keith cries. He hops from foot to foot, careful not to step on the mice’s tails. “Elena, come quick, they’re trying to kill me!”  
  
He hears a loud bark, and then Elena bursts into the living room, riding Kosmo like he’s a horse. She has a blanket tied around her shoulders like a cape, she’s holding a large wooden sword, and she’s wearing Keith’s paladin helmet, which has generously shrunk down to fit her head.  
  
“Don’t worry, Dad!” she yells, pointing the sword at the mice. “I’ll defeat these villain-atious beasts!”  
  
Keith bites back a smile at her wording. “I knew I could count on you!” he says.  
  
Kosmo bounds forward with another bark. Elena slides off his back and jabs her sword at the space mice, who squeak and swing their swords around wildly.  
  
The fight is over quickly—Elena _is_ the best paladin in the entire universe, after all—and soon the space mice are lying on their backs, limbs sprawled and eyes shut. Elena drops her sword and runs up to Keith.  
  
“I saved you!” she says happily.  
  
“You did!” Keith agrees, beaming. He kneels so he can pull off her helmet. Her pigtails poof out; he smooths them down and kisses her forehead. “I’m very proud of you.”  
  
“Kosmo helped too,” she says. “He’s the most bravest ferocious-est wolf.”  
  
Kosmo pads over to her and licks at her hand. She scratches his ears and he flops onto the floor, his tail sweeping across the rug.  
  
“Yes,” Keith says, hiding another smile. “Very ferocious.” He gets to his feet. “It’s almost dinnertime. Do you want to come help?”  
  
Elena nods. The space mice magically revive at the sound of food; they toss off their costumes and scurry up a disgruntled Kosmo’s leg to hitch a ride to the kitchen.  
  
It’s snowy and cold today, so cold that little frost patterns have spread across the window panes. It’s good weather for something cozy, so Keith pulls out the ingredients for tomato soup and grilled cheese. Cooking is kind of chaotic, since Kosmo and the mice keep trying to snitch bites of food, but eventually dinner is made, and they sit down to eat, with the mice sitting on the dining table and Kosmo plopped down on the floor beside it with his own bowl of food. As usual, Elena talks the whole time; this evening she explains the plot of the story she drew for art class yesterday.  
  
“There’s a super cool princess,” she says, dipping a piece of her sandwich in her soup, “super super cool, like Auntie Allura, and she goes on a adventure to save her friends.”  
  
“What do they need saving from?” Keith asks.  
  
Elena eats her bite of sandwich. Some soup from the edge of the bread dots onto her nose. “The monster,” she mumbles.  
  
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Keith chides. He wipes the soup off her nose with his thumb.   
  
Elena scrunches up her nose. She swallows her bite of sandwich. “The monster is made of food goo,” she informs him.  
  
“That is terrifying,” Keith says seriously. “I hope the princess rescues them in time.”  
  
“Of course she does!” Elena says, looking almost offended. “I said she’s like Auntie Allura! Auntie Allura can do anything!”  
  
After dinner they sit on the couch and put on a cartoon. Elena climbs onto the top of the couch so she can sit behind Keith and braid his hair while she watches, but after a while she starts yawning, and by the time the second episode ends she almost falls off the couch.  
  
“Whoa,” Keith says, laughing a little as she droops forward, her face smushing into his hair. He twists around and gently pulls her off the top of the couch and into his lap, smoothing her hair back from her face. “Time for bed, I think.”  
  
“I’m not sleepy,” she mumbles.  
  
“Hmm,” Keith says, smiling and poking her nose. “I think you are. I think you’re sleepy, sleepy, sleepy.”  
  
He pokes her nose again, one for each time he says sleepy. She giggles and hides her face in his knee, though she yawns once more.  
  
“Come on, baby,” he says. He shifts, getting up from the couch a little awkwardly since he’s still holding her in his arms. “Time for bed.”  
  
Getting ready for bed is an ordeal—no matter how many kinds of toothpaste he and Lance have tried, Elena absolutely hates brushing her teeth, and she squirms far too much when Keith brushes her hair—but at last she is snuggled into bed, with her hair in two neat little braids, wearing the juniberry-patterned pajamas Allura got for her as a present when Keith and Lance adopted Elena a few months ago.  
  
“Storybook,” Keith asks, “or real life?”  
  
“Real life!” Elena exclaims. “I wanna hear about Uncle Hunk!”  
  
Keith sits on the edge of the bed, thinking through his adventures with Hunk and trying to figure out what would be interesting to a six year old. “Hm, well, there was the time we went to a carnival on the planet Mela,” he says, “and we met aliens that look like human-sized fairies…”  
  
By the time he’s finished telling her about Hunk getting mistaken for the fairy prince, Elena is struggling to keep her eyes open. Keith tucks the blanket more securely around her shoulders.  
  
“Are you okay?” he asks. “Too hot, too cold?”  
  
“I’m okay,” Elena says, in the slow voice of someone who is only half awake.  
  
“Okay,” Keith says. He leans in and kisses her forehead. “You know I love you, right?”  
  
“I know, Dad,” she says, with another yawn. “I love you too.” She opens her eyes, wide, like she’s just remembered something. “Oh!” She kisses her palm, then flings her hand out towards the window, as if to throw the kiss to the stars that are barely visible through the flurrying snow. “I love you, too, Papi, good night.”  
  
Keith smiles. He gets up, turns off the light, and heads back to the living room. Kosmo is snoozing on the rug, with the space mice piled on top of him, also asleep. Keith sits on the couch and is wondering whether he should read or watch TV when his phone buzzes.  
  
He picks it up off the coffee table, a thrill running through him as he looks at the name on the screen.  
  
“Hi,” he says, as Lance’s face fills the rectangle.  
  
Lance beams. He’s in the hotel room bed, surrounded by a nest of pillows and looking very cozy in the paladin pajamas that he still wears sometimes.  
  
“Hi!” he says, and it’s astonishing to Keith that even after so many years the mere sound of his voice can send such warmth through him. “I’m really sorry I couldn’t call earlier. Our meetings ran really late and these diplomats are dicks so we needed all hands on deck. Otherwise I would have skipped one and called you.”  
  
“It’s okay,” Keith assures him. “Elena was kinda disappointed at first but we played a game and that cheered her up.”  
  
“I’ll make time for an extra long call tomorrow,” Lance promises. He shifts, sighing. “I wish we could all come to these meetings together, I hate being apart from you.”  
  
“It’s only for a week,” Keith says, though he hates it too, hates the feeling of Lance being gone, hates the feeling of being half of one soul, waiting for the other half to return home. “And it’s mostly over.”  
  
“You’re right,” Lance says, brightening a little. “Only two more days!”  
  
They talk for a long while, about the funny things Elena says and the dumb things the diplomats say and how their friends are doing.  
  
(“Shiro and Adam’s anniversary is next month,” Keith says, “and they both separately called me to ask what the other is planning so they can top whatever the other one does.”   
  
Lance snorts. “Why are they so competitive? It’s a fucking anniversary.”  
  
“You did the same thing with our anniversary,” Keith points out. “You called every single friend we have.”  
  
Lance frowns. “Hush,” he says, as Keith snickers. “You can’t point out my hypocrisies! It’s in the husband contract. You have to support me no matter how illogical I am.”)  
  
At length Keith has to end the call, though reluctantly; if he had his way he would stay up all night talking to Lance, but tomorrow is Monday, so he has to take Elena to school before going to his part-time job at the Garrison.  
  
“I’ll call sometime in the evening,” Lance says. “Maybe around dinner? I’ll eat at the same time and it’ll be like we’re all eating together at home.”  
  
“That sounds great,” Keith says, smiling. “I’ll see you then.”  
  
“Yeah,” Lance says. He blows a kiss through the screen. “I love you.”  
  
Keith closes his fist over the screen, catching the kiss. “I love you, too,” he says, and he’s said it a thousand times, but he’s still struck by how easily it rolls off his tongue, struck by how he can look Lance right in the eyes and feel nothing but warmth and happiness and contentment, struck by how his heart can feel so full.  
  
(_how can it not feel full_? his mind says. _a heart with so many people in it can’t possibly be anything but full_)  
  
He wishes he could go back in time to tell his younger self about this moment, to tell him about a day spent playing with his daughter and talking to his brother and brother-in-law, about a day that ends with talking to his husband—his _husband_—a day that he is happy, and has full confidence will be followed by another day that he is happy, and another, and another.  
  
Of course there will be difficulties, but he’s come through so much, and he’s still here—sitting here, in this warm apartment, on this well-worn couch, next to a dark snowy starry sky—with his husband smiling at him and their daughter safe and asleep in the next room—he’s still here, and he has his people with him, and Keith feels like he’s on top of the world.  
  
He wants to tell Lance this, but it’s already late, so he tucks it away in his heart to tell him when he gets back, when he can hold him close and whisper it to him and feel his heartbeat as he says it.  
  
So for now he settles for saying, “Goodnight, love”; for now he settles for watching the delight spread over Lance’s face at the sound of the endearment; for now he settles for the warmth lingering within him even after the call ends and the screen goes black. For now he settles, because he knows that soon he won’t have to settle, and this feeling—this feeling of assurance that everything will be okay—this assurance that complete happiness is not impossible, but merely slightly delayed—is so overwhelming that for a moment his eyes sting.  
  
He blinks a few times, takes a deep breath, then blows a kiss to the stars outside the window, and goes inside to get ready for bed.


	6. day 6: found family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> keith and lance give shiro a pep talk so he can propose to adam. afterward, the whole team celebrates

Shiro looks like he’s gonna throw up.  
  
“I’m gonna throw up,” he says frantically, pacing back and forth on the rug. “I’m gonna walk up to Adam, and look into his eyes, and then throw up all over his shoes, and then he’ll hate me, and he’ll dump me, and I’ll never see him again, and I’ll die of despair.”  
  
Keith blinks. He looks over at Lance, who shrugs.  
  
“Seems accurate,” he says.  
  
Keith frowns and elbows him. They’re in the living room of his and Lance’s apartment, sitting on the couch and watching an increasingly panicked Shiro pace in front of the coffee table.  
  
“You’re supposed to be helpful,” Keith admonishes. “Not encouraging him in”—he waves a hand at Shiro—“this.”  
  
“I mean, he really does look like he’s gonna be sick,” Lance points out. “And honestly, I’d be like that too if I were about to propose.”  
  
“Which you won’t,” Keith adds, “cause I’m gonna do it first.”  
  
Lance narrows his eyes at him. “Are not.”  
  
“Am too.”  
  
“Are _not_.”  
  
“Am _too_.”  
  
“Are NOT—”  
  
“Please!” Shiro interrupts. He stops pacing and stands in front of the coffee table, one arm crossed and his other hand at his temple. “You can argue later. I need _help_.”  
  
“Sorry,” they say in unison.   
  
Lance leans back against the couch cushions. Keith leans forward, trying to put together the right words. Shiro resumes pacing, seeming even more panicked than before.  
  
“Look,” Keith says finally. Shiro glances at him, though he keeps pacing. “You’ve known Adam for years. You’ve dated for—fuck, I don’t even know how long. Do you count the time before Voltron?” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. Even if you don’t, you’ve dated for years. You live together. You spend all your time together. He’s not gonna say no.”  
  
“Yeah,” Lance adds earnestly. “He loves you, man. He looks at you the way I look at garlic knots.”  
  
“That’s kind of ominous,” Keith says. “You make it sound like Adam wants to eat him.”  
  
“Hm.” Lance strokes his chin thoughtfully. “I mean, he did once call Shiro a snacc.”  
  
Shiro stops pacing and frowns at him.  
  
“Never mind that,” Lance says quickly. “The point is”—he gets up, goes around the coffee table, and flings an arm around Shiro’s shoulders, like he’s about to confide to him a huge secret—“Adam loves you. It’s understandable to be nervous, but he’s not gonna say no. He’s gonna say yes, and then give you a big ol’ kiss, and then you can go plan your wedding, and you have to promise to include us because I love wedding planning and I haven’t gotten to be involved in one since Marco got married last year.”  
  
Shiro looks at him. He looks at Keith, who nods.  
  
“Everything he said,” he says. “Adam loves you.”  
  
“Adam loves me,” Shiro repeats, sounding calmer.  
  
“You’re not gonna throw up,” Lance adds.  
  
“I’m not gonna throw up,” Shiro repeats.  
  
“He’s gonna say yes,” Keith continues.  
  
“He’s gonna say yes,” Shiro says. He takes a deep breath. He doesn’t look so pale anymore, to Keith’s relief. “Thank you both.”  
  
“No problem,” Lance says. He moves his arm around so he can hug Shiro properly. “It’s gonna be great. Go get your man!”  
  
Keith jumps up to hug him, too. He wishes he could say more, wishes he were better at talking so he could tell Shiro just how much this means to him, tell him that despite his and Lance’s ribbing, they’re both ridiculously happy for him, tell him that to be worried at all is absurd, because the fact of Adam loving Shiro is as simple and unshakeable as the fact of Keith loving Lance.  
  
But he can’t say all of that, can’t say any of it, so he just squeezes Shiro as tight as he can, and says, “Good luck,” and smiles at him as Shiro pulls on his coat and shoves on his boots and marches out the door as if he’s going into battle.  
  
(Keith sees the answering smile on his face, though, sees that it’s only half directed at him and Lance, sees that it’s softer, like he’s already wherever Adam is right now, like he’s thinking of him and the question he’s going to ask and the answer he knows he will receive. Keith supposes it makes sense; doesn’t he still feel like he’s with Lance even with they’re apart, like a part of his mind and his soul is stuck wherever Lance is, no matter where Keith’s body is?)  
  
(_you’re so fucking corny nowadays_, his mind says, rolling its eyes)  
  
(_good_, says another part, firmly. _better corny than angry, or alone, or sad_)  
  
He sits back down on the couch. Lance has already collapsed onto it, so Keith stretches out his legs, putting them in Lance’s lap. Lance pokes at his ankles.  
  
“That’s gonna be me someday,” he says at length, his eyes flicking to the door.  
  
“No it won’t,” Keith says, smirking, “cause that’s gonna be _me_ someday.”  
  
Lance makes as if to slam his fists down on Keith’s calves like they’re a tabletop, but at the last second he pulls back, so they land gently on the fabric of his sweatpants. “It will _not_!” he half shouts, indignant. “I’ll propose to you _first_!”  
  
“Will not.”  
  
“Will _too_!”  
  
“Will _not_!”  
  
“Will TOO!”

.^.  
  
Adam says yes, of course.  
  
“What’d we tell you!” Lance yells, pumping his fist into the air when Shiro calls them a couple hours later to tell them the news. “You had no reason to be nervous!”  
  
“Thank you again,” Shiro says. Even on the tiny screen of his phone, Keith can see the sheer delight on his face, bright and pure and unbridled. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Shiro smile so big. “I’m sorry I bothered you both.”  
  
“It wasn’t a bother,” Keith assures him, as Lance nods. “We love you. We want you to be happy.”  
  
There’s a voice off screen. Shiro turns to listen, then turns back to the screen, beaming even bigger than before.  
  
“Adam says to come over and we’ll celebrate,” he says. “We’re going to call everyone else, too.”  
  
Lance’s brow crinkles. “Don’t you want to be alone?”  
  
“Adam’s happy-cooking,” Shiro says, with an affectionate eye roll. “He’s going to end up making enough dinner for a dozen people, so we might as well feed everyone.”  
  
They can’t argue in the face of Adam happy-cooking, so they pull on their jackets and head over to Shiro and Adam’s apartment. The timing is fortunate; Krolia and the Alteans are visiting after a few months doing diplomacy work up in space, and Hunk is back in town after visiting his family, so for the first time in half a year, the whole team is back together again.  
  
Keith sits on the rug in the living room, laughing at Krolia and Coran’s imitation of the stuffy diplomat they met with last week and sneaking bites of food to the space mice and Kosmo, who spent the last few days with Pidge as she stayed home alone to work on projects for the Garrison. Pidge rambles on about said projects, and Hunk talks about the research he’s doing for his mechanical engineering degree, and Lance tells them about his and Keith’s Adventure To Paint The Living Room Blue, followed by the subsequent Adventure To Get Paint Off The Furniture They Forgot To Cover. Allura and Romelle talk about the trip they went on for their anniversary last month, and Shiro makes fun of his own pre-proposal worries, and Adam shows the ring to the Alteans, who are very curious about earth engagement rituals.   
  
It’s noisy and chaotic and the small living room is full to bursting, and Keith knows that in a while he’ll start to tire out, but for now he looks at this full room, brightened by the people in it, and his heart feels like _it_ is full to bursting.  
  
Lance is sitting next to him on the rug. He nudges Lance’s knee with his own, then reaches out and takes his hand. Lance smiles at him and laces their fingers together, settling their entwined hands on his knee.  
  
“You okay?” he whispers, under the sound of Allura and Romelle roasting Coran for the outfit he wore to their last meeting.  
  
“Yeah,” Keith says. He looks at everyone again, looks at these people who he would do anything for and would do anything for him, looks at this odd group that has become his family.  
  
He looks at everyone, happy and laughing and together, and then his gaze lands on Lance once more, meets eyes that are bright and brown and never fail to make him feel warm.  
  
“Yeah,” he says again, and smiles back. “I’m just really happy, that’s all.”


	7. day 7: dual wielding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an AU of the end of s6, ft. klance going after kuron together and lance getting to use his “boy from cuba” line in a much different scenario

Keith is tired.  
  
He went on a mission—_two fucking years ago_—to check up with a blade member, a mission that somehow turned into a family reunion. Then he went right into another mission, then into what felt like an eternity’s worth of camping on a _whale_, then into the discovery that a supposedly lost race of people is very much not lost, then into a frantic trip back to save his friends from a power-hungry genocidal prince, then into the discovery that something is really wrong with his brother, the person who matters more to him than pretty much anyone else in the entire universe, and now said brother has escaped with said power-hungry genocidal prince into a fucking wormhole.  
  
Actually, Keith is not tired. He’s exhausted, and he’s angry, he’s fucking _furious_, because he didn’t sign up for this, he didn’t sign up for this at all, he signed up for a basic mission—_two fucking years ago_—and all he wanted was to come back to this group of people, these people he cares about more than anything, his _family_, and give them too many hugs and listen to them talk too much and feel stupidly happy.  
  
But he can’t, and that infuriates him, and his fury is so great that he barely feels the spin of the wormhole as he tumbles through it, so great that he feels intensely present as he exits the lion onto a platform, like the colors and sounds around him are heightened, made hyper-specific, like the rushing in his veins and his chest and his head are outlining exactly what he has to do so he can get this over with and finally get his stupidly happy reunion with his friends.  
  
(if he is being honest, he is not—fully angry—about his anger—he is not angry that he is angry, but actually a bit—relieved—because his time at the blade has sapped too many of his feelings, has made him sad at best and empty at worst, and it is refreshing to feel again, even if it isn’t positive)  
  
(it occurs to him in the next second how fucked up that is, how horrible it is that he’s relieved to feel angry. he already has half a mind to leave the blade, but this makes it certain; he can’t go back now, not when he finally remembers what it’s like to feel again, not when he’s finally realized how far gone he was, that anger is a relief rather than a burden)  
  
He looks up and sees Shiro—or not-Shiro, as he’s starting to realize—on the platform, still carrying Lotor. He starts up the platform towards him when he hears a loud roar. He stops, frowning, and turns to see that the wormhole is closing, though not before the red lion zooms through and lands beside Black.  
  
“What?” he mutters, his frown deepening.  
  
Red’s mouth opens. Lance jumps out.  
  
“Hi,” he says, as if they’re meeting at breakfast back at the castle ship. “I’ve come to help.”  
  
Keith blinks at him. It takes him a second to recognize the feelings within him as worry and gratitude.   
  
“This is dangerous,” he says.  
  
“Yeah,” Lance replies, as if it’s obvious. “That’s why I’ve come to help.” He tilts his head. “Did you hit your head going through the wormhole? That can happen if your helmet’s not on right.”  
  
(worry, and gratitude, and fond irritation, and _warmth_, warmth at having him here to help, to back him up, to catch him if he falls, and he was relieved to be angry after so many months of feeling empty at the blade, but this is so, so much better, because it’s comfortable, spreads out from the pit of his stomach, makes the cold knot of fury in his chest feel more human)  
  
“If you’re worried about the others, they’ll be fine,” Lance assures him. “They have Allura to lead them. But Shiro—or whoever that is, or whatever’s controlling him—he’s a lot stronger than you, and he has Lotor, and we don’t know who’s behind this. So you need backup.”  
  
How the fuck does he have time to think about this kind of stuff? He didn’t have any more time coming through the wormhole than Keith did, but somehow he’s thought this through a lot better than Keith has.  
  
“I’m glad you’re here,” Keith says finally. He sees Lance’s expression brighten. “Let’s go, he went that way.”  
  
They run along the platform, far enough that they’re out of sight of the lions. For a moment Keith thinks this might actually be straightforward, that they can catch up to not-Shiro and Lotor without difficulty, but then—  
  
“Disappointed but not surprised,” Lance mutters as the first druid appears.  
  
Keith gives him a look. More druids appear, one by one in a circle, closing in like birds of prey. Keith summons his bayard and takes his Galra knife out from his pocket; both melt into their sword forms at the same time. “Is now really the time for memes?”  
  
“There’s always time for memes, mullet!” Lance says. He turns to face the druids behind them, taking a few steps backward so his back hits Keith’s. “Would it really kill these people to just let us win easy for once?”  
  
“Probably,” Keith says. “You ready?”  
  
“Of course,” Lance says, and Keith knows that if he had time he’d probably go on about how he’s always ready, because he’s ready for anything, because he’s Leandro fucking McClain, but right then the last of the druids arrive, and there’s six of them, and there isn’t much time for talking.  
  
(even with how many druids there are, long robes flowing and masks glowing and fingers crackling with deadly magic, Keith isn’t afraid. he is angry, and focused, and determined, but he is not afraid. how can he be, with Lance at his back?)  
  
Keith goes on autopilot for the fight; he’s done this a hundred times in training, a hundred times on blade missions, and his arms move in a rhythm, swinging his bayard one way and his Galra blade in another. The only real break in his focus is when he whirls to avoid a spell a druid shoots at him; when he turns he sees another druid coming at Lance from behind, and he’s about to shout a warning when Lance turns and slices it in half.  
  
Keith blinks, startled—because when the fuck did Lance get a sword, what—but he collects himself quickly and ducks just in time to avoid another spell.  
  
It seems that some of the druids aren’t as experienced as the others; four of them fall relatively quickly, their magic too slow to avoid Keith and Lance’s blows. The remaining two are much harder to beat, disappearing and reappearing so fast that Keith gets almost dizzy trying to keep his eyes on them.   
  
At one point, both of them disappear in unison. Keith and Lance look round, shoulders tense, on high alert. Several seconds pass, and Keith wonders if they’ve left, if they should keep going after not-Shiro, when suddenly there’s a voice, disembodied and echoing and layered, like both of the druids are speaking at once.  
  
_We only require the red paladin_, the voice says. The sound of it makes Keith think of a tin cup clanging onto a tile floor. _Surrender and we will leave the other one alone_.  
  
Keith opens his mouth to answer, but Lance beats him to it.  
  
“NO!” he shouts. “We’re a two for one deal! You fuck with one paladin and the other fucks you up for free!”  
  
Keith’s stomach lurches. Having Lance here when they were equally in danger is one thing; having him here when he has an opportunity to escape unharmed is quite another.   
  
“You should—” he starts to say, but Lance cuts him off.  
  
“Don’t,” he says, his face twisted. “Don’t even think it. I’m not leaving you.”  
  
“But—”  
  
“I’m not leaving you,” Lance repeats fiercely. “In fact”—he redoubles his grip on his bayard and it shimmers in response—“I’ll hold these two off myself, and you should go get Shiro. It’s been too long; we can’t risk not knowing what’s going on with him and whoever’s controlling him.”  
  
He has a point, and Keith can practically feel the clock ticking, but he can’t leave Lance here, but to stay here any longer would mean more time for not-Shiro and whoever’s controlling him to do something horrible, but—  
  
“Go!” Lance says, and he’s scowling, and there’s a bruise on his cheek, and fire in his eyes, and Keith—  
  
Keith deactivates his bayard, then grabs Lance’s free hand with his own.  
  
(he’s angry again, angry that he has to make this decision, angry that this decision makes sense)  
  
(but he trusts Lance, trusts him to make it out of this safely, trusts that he will come back to him, and make him feel everything but anger, make him feel happiness and contentment and fond irritation)  
  
He squeezes Lance’s hand tight.  
  
“Be careful,” he says quietly.   
  
“You too,” Lance says, and for the briefest moment there is—something—something in his eyes, in his expression—but then he lets go of Keith’s hand, and the two druids reappear, and he turns away to face them.  
  
Keith watches him for a second, his heart thudding, then turns around and runs down the platform. As he hurries away he hears the druids hiss, hears them say _the red paladin, after him_!, hears Lance say “I think the fuck not,” hears the clang of his sword as he intercepts the druid’s magic.  
  
_Why are you even here_? the druid asks, annoyed and alarmed. _We were not expecting you. Who even are you_?  
  
“Oh, no one special,” Lance says, and Keith can hear the grin in his voice, and despite himself he feels a grin of his own unfurl across his face, and god he’d really rather have no one else at his side for this, because Lance can strategize and tear a druid to pieces and say lines straight out of a fucking action movie with no trouble at all. “I’m just a boy from Cuba.”  
  
(he destroys them, of course, and Keith comes back with not-Shiro to find Lance kneeling on the platform, badly bruised and breathing hard but otherwise safe)  
  
(they have to go back quickly, to help the others defeat Lotor, but as soon as the fight is over, as soon as not-Shiro becomes real Shiro, Keith runs up to Lance, and throws his arms around him, and hugs him as tight as their armor will allow)  
  
(and then Lance lets go, and dramatically tosses off the top part of his armor, and Keith laughs, and does the same, and then they hug again, properly this time, and it’s warm and close and Keith’s heart is full, full, full)  
  
(full, full, full, and he’s not angry anymore, but happy, and content, and, thanks to the raspberry Lance blows in his neck, fondly irritated, and he thinks, for the first time in a long time, that everything will be okay)


	8. day 9: racing with shiro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> adam goes to get groceries. shiro and keith and lance are supposed to clean in the meantime, but things go a little awry. shiro pov

“Today,” Adam says, his hands on his hips as he surveys the living room, “is chores day.”  
  
“_No_,” Shiro says, with horror. He’s sitting on the couch, wearing the same t-shirt and sweatpants that he’s worn for the past three days. “We can’t do chores! We’re on vacation.”  
  
“In our house,” Adam points out, though Shiro sees the corner of his mouth twitch. “We have to clean, Takashi.”  
  
Shiro sighs and flops back against the couch cushions. Adam comes over to him and pats the top of his head.  
  
“It’ll be okay,” he says sympathetically. “You’ll survive.”  
  
Shiro catches his wrist and pulls his hand down to kiss it. “I didn’t escape Zarkon’s prison for this,” he mutters against Adam’s palm.  
  
“You really need to stop saying that any time anything inconveniences you,” Adam chides, though Shiro sees the corner of his mouth twitch again. “Now come on, the sooner we start the sooner it’ll be done.”  
  
They dust the living room, wipe down the appliances, toss some laundry into the washer. As Shiro dumps the clothes in, he frowns.  
  
“Half of these are Keith’s and Lance’s,” he says. He looks over at Adam, who’s passing through the hallway as he carries an alarmingly tall stack of dishes from the bedroom to the kitchen. “Why do we have so many of their clothes? They haven’t stayed over since last month.”  
  
“Yeah,” Adam says. “That’s what those are from.”  
  
“What?” Shiro looks at the clothes in the washer, appalled. “How long has it been since I did laundry?”  
  
“This is why we needed chores day!” Adam calls from the kitchen. There’s a series of thuds, the cabinets and cupboards being opened and closed. “Hey, we’re running low on a lot of stuff so I think I’ll go get groceries—”  
  
“Okay,” Shiro says.  
  
“—from Kanatown.”  
  
Kanatown? Shiro closes the door to the washer and starts it. He walks into the kitchen so Adam can hear him over the noise of the machine.  
  
“That’s an hour away,” he says.  
  
“Yeah,” Adam replies, checking another cupboard before turning to face him, “but it’s the only place nearby with an Indian grocery. The one in Platte City closed last year.”  
  
“It did?” Shiro shakes his head, frowning. “I’ve been gone way too long.”  
  
He says it offhand, but he sees something odd flash across Adam’s face, and it makes his chest tighten.  
  
“Sorry,” he says. He steps over to him and kisses his cheek. “Do you want me to come?” He winks and flexes the fingers of his prosthetic. “I can lift a ton of stuff with this thing. Peak grocery shopping performance.”  
  
Adam rolls his eyes, though he smiles. “I’ll be fine,” he says. “You should stay and clean the floor. That’s all we have left, so by the time I get back we can jump right into making dinner.”  
  
“Okay,” Shiro says.  
  
He kisses him again, and he aims for Adam’s cheek, but right then Adam turns his head, so the kiss lands on his mouth, and his hand comes up to cup Shiro’s jaw, and for a long moment everything is hazy and soft.  
  
(he tastes like the mint tea he had before they started cleaning, sharp and sweet, and warmth shoots through Shiro, through his neck his chest the pit of his stomach, curling his toes and making his heart expand)  
  
“I’ll miss you,” he says quietly, when they break apart.  
  
Adam’s hand still cups Shiro’s jaw; he slides his hand around, tangling his fingers in Shiro’s hair. “It’s barely a couple hours,” he says, though he looks pleased.  
  
“Exactly,” Shiro says, like it’s obvious. “That’s _forever_.”  
  
Adam smiles and kisses him a second time, too briefly for Shiro to reciprocate. “Ask Keith and Lance to come keep you company,” he suggests, then lets go of him so he can go get ready to go out. “You can trick them into helping you clean the floor.”

.^.  
  
Shiro does indeed trick them into helping them clean the floor.  
  
“All right!” Lance shouts as he and Keith burst into the apartment. He flings out his arms, talking like an announcer at a basketball game. “Who’s ready for some Killlllbooooot Phaaaaantaaaaasm?”  
  
He makes airhorn noises, forming a megaphone with his hands and jumping from foot to foot in some kind of weird dance that Shiro suspects is what the Youths are into these days. Or maybe just Lance. Lance tends to make up his own version of what the Youths do.  
  
Keith is giving Lance the Dopey Face that he always gives him when he does silly stuff like this. “I don’t think we’re actually here for video games,” he says, waving a hand at Shiro.  
  
Lance blinks at Shiro, who is holding a Swiffer in one hand and a hand vacuum in the other.  
  
“Oh shit,” Lance says. “Are we here to clean?”  
  
Shiro hands him the Swiffer. “You two left a bunch of clothes from the last time you stayed over,” he says, giving the hand vacuum to Keith. “I have graciously put them in the washer and in return you will help me clean the floor while Adam gets groceries.”  
  
“Putting clothes in a washer isn’t as hard as cleaning the floor,” Keith points out.  
  
“You can stay for dinner, too,” Shiro adds.  
  
“Yes!” Lance pumps his fist. “Adam dinner!” His fist drops. “Lately we’ve been living off pizza and tacos and burgers.”  
  
Shiro’s brow furrows. “But you know how to cook.”  
  
“Yeah, but.” Lance shrugs. “Takeout is easier.”  
  
He swings the Swiffer over his shoulder like he’s a chimney sweep, then marches past Shiro and into the kitchen to start cleaning. Keith looks at Shiro.  
  
“Our arteries are probably 90% clogged by now,” he says. “I don’t remember what vegetables taste like anymore.”  
  
Shiro snorts. “I take it everything is going well with you two?”  
  
Keith nods. He looks in the direction of the kitchen, making the Dopey Face again. “Really well.”  
  
“Good.”   
  
Shiro reaches out to ruffle his hair. Keith makes a face and ducks, swatting at Shiro’s arm with the hand vacuum, but Shiro blocks it with his prosthetic and uses his other hand to reach over and ruffle his hair anyway.  
  
Keith scowls. “I hate you,” he mutters.  
  
“I love you too,” Shiro says, beaming. “Now go clean my floor.”

.^.  
  
It takes them way too long to clean the floors.  
  
First Lance insists on putting on “cleaning music,” which is a “carefully curated playlist of songs designed to motivate you to clean.” “Carefully curated” turns out to be Lance Speak for “sit on the couch for half an hour going through songs and arguing with Keith over whether or not Carly Rae Jepsen is acceptable cleaning music.”  
  
(apparently it is. Shiro is quite pleased by this fact)  
  
Eventually they start cleaning, but it’s slow going, because Keith with a hand vacuum is a Keith with Too Much Power.  
  
“Hey Shiro, you have some lint on your shirt,” he says.  
  
He sticks the hand vacuum on the sleeve of Shiro’s t-shirt, sucking a bit of the fabric into the vacuum.  
  
Shiro gives him a dead stare, but otherwise keeps sweeping. Keith turns off the vacuum, snickering, then goes out of the living room and into the bathroom. Shiro hears him say “Hey Lance, you have some lint on your shirt,” followed by the _zoom_ of the hand vacuum, followed by “MULLET—!”  
  
Lance chases Keith into the living room, tackling him onto the couch and blowing raspberries into his neck. Keith laughs harder than Shiro has seen him laugh in a long time, and he’s glad to see it, but he hasn’t thrown away the pile of dust he swept up, so the ruckus blows it around the living room floor again.  
  
“Whoops,” Lance says, with a weak chuckle. “Sorry.”  
  
Shiro sighs and picks up the broom again.  
  
At length they finally get the whole house done, except for the tile hallway leading from the living room to the front door. Keith and Shiro wait in the living room while Lance Swiffers the tile, starting at the front door and moving backwards down the hall.  
  
“I think there’s too much water,” Keith says. “It’s really slippery.” He puts his foot on the tile and pushes it forward. “This would be kind of fun to slide on.”  
  
Lance’s eyes light up. “Can we do that?” he gasps, looking at Shiro. Keith looks at him too, his expression hopeful. “I wanna zoom down the hallway.”  
  
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Shiro says.  
  
Both boys’ faces fall.  
  
“We have to put on socks first,” he goes on, “for maximum slipperiness.”  
  
Lance drops the Swiffer.  
  
“You are so cool right now,” he says.

.^.  
  
A few minutes later they all stand at the edge of the hallway, sock-clad and staring down the front door.  
  
“Wait,” Lance says. “Shouldn’t we wear helmets or something? What if we crash onto the tile? Or the shoe rack?”  
  
“We’ve already died,” Shiro points out, because for some absurd reason he has people he can make this statement to. For a second it gives him pause—what the fuck has his life even _been_, that he can say something like that—but he shakes it off, determined to be carefree for today.  
  
“True,” Lance says. “What do I have to fear? Crashing onto a tile floor can’t possibly hurt more than getting murdered by radiation.”  
  
“Or in a battle with Zarkon,” Shiro adds.  
  
“You two are fun,” Keith says dryly. “Let’s just go.”  
  
First each of them takes a running start from the living room rug, then jumps onto the tile and slides down the hallway. That turns into “who can get back to the living room rug in the wackiest way possible” (Lance, disco-dancing), then “who can jump the farthest from the living room rug onto the tile without falling” (Keith), then “who can slide the farthest” (Shiro), then “who can get to the front door first.”   
  
Lance sits out for the last one, since the hallway isn’t big enough for three people to slide down it at once. He Swiffers the hallway again with extra water to make it slipperier—“this must be what Zamboni drivers feel like,” he says—then sits on the rug behind Keith and Shiro.  
  
“Welcome to the great slippery hallway race!” he shouts in his basketball-announcer voice. He waves a hand at Keith. “On one side we have Keith Kogane, fashion disaster, grumpiest man on the block, the love of my life!”  
  
Keith rolls his eyes, though when he glances back at Lance he’s making the Dopey Face yet again.  
  
Lance waves a hand at Shiro. “On the other side we have Takashi Shirogane, dad friend, sometimes cool, the brother of the love of my life!” He claps his hands together. “One-two-three-GO!”  
  
Shiro and Keith take running leaps onto the tile. The slicker floor makes the trip much faster than the previous ones. Shiro’s stomach drops out from under him; he approaches the front door much, much quicker than before, so quick he’ll probably smack right into it if he doesn’t stop himself somehow, but it’s kind of hard to stop when the only furniture is a shoe rack, so uh—  
  
The front door opens inward.  
  
“Look out!” Lance shouts from the living room.  
  
“Fuck!” Keith says.  
  
“Shit!” Shiro yells.  
  
He throws out his arm; his hand smashes into the wall, and he squeezes his eyes shut to brace for the rest of the impact. It doesn’t come, though; he opens his eyes and sees that his hand was enough to stop his momentum, though the prosthetic has left a dent in the wall where he smashed his hand into it.  
  
He looks in front of him. Adam blinks back. There are bags of groceries around him on the front step.  
  
Shiro huffs. He pulls his hand back from the wall, then leans his elbow in the doorway. He slips a little on the slick floor—Adam eyes flick over him as he does so, and he’s clearly suppressing a laugh—but he catches himself in time and manages to lean his shoulder against the doorway instead, crossing his arms.  
  
“Hey sweetheart,” he says, as casually as he can manage. “You’re back early.”  
  
Adam blinks again. He looks to Shiro’s left, where Keith is clinging to the side of the door, which he caught onto to stop his own momentum. He looks back at Shiro.  
  
“I leave you for two hours,” Adam begins, and it’s dry, and fond, and despite his words he’s smiling a little, the corner of his mouth crooking, and Shiro’s heart jumps.  
  
“Nope!” he says, grinning. He leans forward and kisses Adam, quick and gentle. “We cleaned the floors! You can’t be mad about this.”  
  
Adam narrows his eyes, though his smile grows. “Yes I can,” he says.  
  
Shiro kisses him again. “No you can’t.”  
  
“Yes I _can_,” he says, but he’s smiling properly now, and it’s brighter than the fucking sun in the sky, and Shiro loves him so much he feels like he can’t even _breathe_.  
  
He loves him, but he also likes to bother him, so he says, a bit sing-songy, “No you can’t.”  
  
He leans forward to kiss him again, but right then Keith loudly clears his throat, which Shiro thinks is very rude of him, seeing as he’s been making Dopey Faces at Lance all afternoon.  
  
“You should probably let him in first,” he says.  
  
He has a point, even if it means having to put off more kissing. They remove their socks and help Adam bring the groceries to the kitchen, then help him make dinner. They eat on the coffee table in the living room, and Lance and Keith talk about their plans to visit Allura and Coran in space next month, and Adam talks about the weird old man he saw at the Indian grocery, and Shiro is determined to be carefree, but he looks at these people, and he thinks of where he was, only a few years ago, thinks of Zarkon’s prison and druids and the astral plane, thinks of how far away this seemed then and how close it is now, and he feels like he might burst with how happy he is.  
  
After dinner, he kisses Adam again, just because he can—because he _can_, because he can kiss him whenever he wants now, as many times as he wants—and he thinks that, for once, his life is going exactly how he wants it to.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! tumblr and twitter are both @laallomri, feel free to come talk


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